Mini Guide: Getting started with Rome II

[Bramborough]

Ballistas are awesome, as noted above (I think). Not only do they inflict massive damage but using them is way more fun than I ever expected.

100% agree. I love using ballistae, they're a standard item in the vast majority of armies I build. Slaists, however, has pointed out that the presence of siege artillery significantly affects AI aggression, causing it to rashly attack en masse if the player has siege artillery and the AI does not (which is usually the case). Some experimentation on my part has convinced me that he's correct. I personally don't have much of a problem with this using Hellenic armies with pike units; enemy aggression is exactly what I want. It does, however, start to lead to a certain "sameness" as the battles start to resemble each other. If at some point you'd prefer for the character of the battles to become a bit more varied, try dropping the ballistae.

For instance in some regions I can only 2 Farms and when I try to build another one in an appropiate slot the option doesn't appear (only Temple, Field of Mars and Workshop). In other regions I can only build Cattle Pens instead of Farms after getting a Villa.

From this short description, I'm pretty sure what you're seeing is the fact that you cannot have duplicate buildings above Level I in the same city. So, for example, lets say you have a minor settlement with two open slots. It is possible to build two Villas in those two slots, because the Villa leads to multiple building types. Once one of those Villas has been upgraded into a Farm, however, then that leaves only the Cattle Pen available as an upgrade in the other slot.

Also worth mentioning, the agricultural building types are not available in provincial capitals for most "civilized" factions (barbarian factions are an exception).

Naval battles confuse me a lot, and I seem to be losing them most of the time despite the odds on my side. Does anyone have any recommendations about it or know of a guide on how it works?

I've worked up a rough draft of a naval warfare guide which is under some edit/review. I hope it will appear on this forum soon, so check back.

In meantime, a very short summary: Ram/board tactics require a lot of micromanagement. With fleets larger than say 5-6 ships, my own belief is that close-quarters "naval melee" becomes one of the very few things (perhaps only thing) at which the AI excels the average human player. So...fight naval battles at long range using artillery ships. Use a high preponderance of ballista-equipped ships (say, roughly half or at least a third of your fleet). Use jav/archer ships, with fire-at-will enabled and flaming projectiles chosen, as a screen to protect your ballista ships, which do the ship-killing.

So let's say I have the shrine of minerva lv 3 and right above the icon I have convert/dismantle. If choose another shrine from the option do I keep both shrines or just the one, the same on the cattle and farms do I keep both or just one

No, just one temple. You're converting that slot to different use, not building additional capacity. Same with agricultural buildings or any other type slot.